Founding Hogwarts
by UglyDuckling57
Summary: Memories and musings of the Founders of Hogwarts. Written for kenpo's Instrumental Musical Challenge and HEG's Founders Challenge.
1. Normandie

21 February 2014

The Founders Four: Godric Gryffindor

Normandie

The Great Hall abounds with splendor on this, the first night of the rest of your life. You sit in the middle of it all, watching the young pupils chattering, reaching across each other in their excitement to taste the food fit for kings. Tomorrow they will awake with stomachaches and none will grumble when they are offered the standard fare of warm porridge for breakfast. Salazar would have them eat like monks on every day of the year, but you overruled him on this momentous occasion, saying that everyone deserved a feast tonight.

It has been three years since you gathered your colleagues around you in order to dream and scheme, building palaces on the air and tearing them down when they weren't good enough for your band of four great minds. You were the natural leader, the man with flaming locks of rust and passionate words. Born of noble stock, you learned how to be a man from the time that you could walk and talk. The horses you rode, the dogs you trained, the hunts that you attended with your father, all combined to weave the cloth of your existence.

And yet, despite your athleticism and joviality of spirit, despite your inherited nobility and learned chivalry, there was something different about you. Your fingertips sparked with electricity, and your hair waved about even when there was no wind. Sometimes you awoke from a dream of flying and found yourself levitating a foot in the air. Your parents did not know what was wrong with you; they took you to famous healers all over the countryside, but none could explain the strange forces at work inside of you.

So you were cast out, in a sense. Your friends deserted you one by one, and soon only your father would look at you without fear. Life became a solitary trial.

It is not in your triumphs, but in your failings that you have found the man you were meant to be. Regardless of circumstance, you always picked yourself up and carried on. After your parents died, you called on the three people who understood your situation, who knew what it was like to be different. You laid the foundation for a tradition designed to carry on through the centuries, a tradition of uniting people who, despite their many creeds, clans, and values, share a common bond.

The students are yawning now, and across the room you see your young son dozing in his pudding. Laughing, you announce that it is high time that everyone went off to bed. As they all file out of the hall, mumbling in sleepy, contented voices, you breathe a sigh of relief.

It has been three years since you first dreamed of creating a school to instruct young witches and wizards. It is only today that the dream has become a full reality.

You, the lion-hearted, chivalrous, brash, loud, ruddy-faced nobleman, are more than the sum of your parts.

Godric Gryffindor, you are _brave._


	2. Bretagne

2 March 2014

Helga Hufflepuff

III. Île-de-France

Heaving a contented sigh, you lean back in your chair. Your optimism about tonight was well-founded, for the feast seems to be a success. It warms your heart to watch the young pupils forming instant friendships in the glow of candlelight. You chuckle to yourself at their mirth.

PSomewhere there is music playing, a lively dance tune heard by none else. But how could you fabricate the harmonies that ring in your ears tonight? People from different backgrounds have come together, uniting under a common banner, and it is the music of humanity that you hear. It is precisely this music that will allow the school to prosper and persevere, even in the darkest of times.

Your golden hair and sunny demeanor belie your troubled past. Although you walk in the light, you have known darkness. Not so many years ago, when you were as young as your students, your father and mother burned at the stake—she for practicing magic, he for loving her. Your world was set ablaze by the flames of hatred. Before the others could come after you, you fled the broad valleys of your homeland, seeking asylum with those who shared your odd powers.

PIt is by circumstance that your character was tested, but when darkness could have consumed you, you chose the side of light. Never could you allow yourself to be hateful in return for hatred. Nonmagical folk are human beings, not demons. Their only fault was that they feared what they could not understand. So, although you sometimes wept in the dead of night for all that you lost, you transcended your pain and forgave. There were magic folk everywhere who faced death at the hands of their nonmagical counterparts, and regardless of their background, you accepted them. Fighting fire with fire would only lead to the ruin of all that was still good and pure in the world.

Salazar Slytherin sneered when you, the youngest and shyest of the four, put forth your intention to accept any witch or wizard regardless of parentage. You stood your ground, stalwart as a badger because you refused to succumb to bigotry. All should be welcome at the school who wished to learn and who sought the company of similar people. It would only lead to trouble if none but pureblooded wizards were accepted as pupils. Now, surveying your little bunch of students sporting armbands of yellow, you feel justified in your beliefs.

As the sleepy youths exit the Great Hall, you can hear a subtle dissonance in the tacit music. Tensions between the students have yet to arise, but soon there will be skirmishes. It is only to be expected, when each instructor prizes such different values.

You are the force that will hold people together in times of trouble. Although you are perceived as naïve and young, you are the strongest of the four in your morals and the most dedicated to the cause for which you fight.

You are _loyal,_ Helga Hufflepuff.


	3. Ile-de-France

8 March 2014

Rowena Ravenclaw

IV. Alsace-Lorraine

It is you who ask Godric to dismiss the students to bed. Sleep came upon them quickly, and they came to learn, not to oversleep. The first lesson that you will teach keeps running through your mind as you ensure that every detail is perfect.

No, you've done that enough, haven't you? You have made it your business to know everything that you possibly can about magic, so imparting your knowledge to the students will come easily if they are sharp and willing to listen. These days, you are in the habit of using magical theory as a distraction from the thoughts that are truly on your mind.

If anyone knows what prejudice is, it is you. Born into a noble Wizarding family, you were encouraged to be a proper lady, to forsake the pen and paper for sewing and dancing lessons. However, you rebelled against the notion that you should be considered less than a man. You read books and practiced magic, writing treatises about your own theories. Whenever a learned guest visited, you listened at the door of your father's study so that you could discern the secrets of the universe.

Naturally, finding a husband was difficult, but your father finally found a nobleman who was willing to accept a wife with a thirst for knowledge and a sharp tongue. Away you went to your new castle, where you began to manage your husband's affairs. He was only too happy for the assistance.

Your marriage, while not saturated with love, was one of pleasant symbiosis. Soon, a child came along, a beautiful girl with her mother's black hair and her father's gleaming green eyes. She lit up your world, and there was nothing that you could deny her.

A few years later, the world as you knew it came to an end. The premature death of your husband left you with a young daughter, a large estate, and restive serfs. Although you had proved yourself time and again as a woman of reason, the men resented being governed by a woman—a woman with magical powers, no less! Things began to happen: they threw rocks at your windows, set fire to your stables, hobbled your livestock, and the servants in the castle whispered plots against you. When it became clear that there was no way to persuade the serfs to desist, you fled with your daughter to the south.

You are the mastermind behind most of the enchantments and wards around the school. These children should not have to know fear of their fellow humans because they have magical blood, or are not male. Power comes from knowledge, and anyone who wishes to hold that power should be able to, regardless of gender.

Because of your intelligence and creativity, the lessons that you teach will remain in students' minds for years to come. You have found a place where you can have the power that the world denies you: the power of knowledge.

You are _wise,_ Rowena Ravenclaw.


End file.
